Shunryu Suzuki Quotes

In your big mind, everything has the same value ... In your practice you should accept everything as it is, giving to each thing the same respect given to a Buddha. Here there is Buddhahood

The most important thing is to express your true nature in the simplest, most adequate way and to appreciate it in the smallest existence.

As long as you seek for something, you will get the shadow of reality and not reality itself.

Life without zazen is like winding your clock without setting it. It runs perfectly well, but it dosen't tell time.

Someone was sitting in front of a sunflower, watching the sunflower, a cup of sun, and so I tried it too. It was wonderful; I felt the whole universe in the sunflower. That was my experience. Sunflower meditation. A wonderful confidence appeared. You can see the whole universe in a flower.

We must make some effort, but we must forget ourselves in the effort we make ... So it is necessary for us to encourage ourselves and to make an effort up to the last moment, when all effort disappears.

Moment after moment, everyone comes out from nothingness. This is the true joy of life.

More important than any stage which you will attain is your sincerity, your right effort.

If you understand real practice, then archery or other activities can be zen. If you don't understand how to practice archery in its true sense, then even though you practice very hard, what you acquire is just technique. It won't help you through and through. Perhaps you can hit the mark without trying, but without a bow and arrow you cannot do anything. If you understand the point of practice, then even without a bow and arrow the archery will help you. How you get that kind of power or ability is only through right practice.

Even though you read much Zen literature, you must read each sentence with a fresh mind. You should not say, "I know what Zen is," or "I have attained enlightenment." This is also the real secret of the arts: always be a beginner."
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"When you are sitting in the middle of your own problem, which is more real to you: your problem or you yourself? The awareness that you are here, right now, is the ultimate fact. "
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"Knowing that your life is short, to enjoy it day after day, moment after moment, is the life of "form is form and emptiness is emptiness."
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"You may feel as if you are doing something special, but actually it is only the expression of your true nature; it is the activity which appeases your inmost desire. But as long as you think you are practicing zazen for the sake of something, that is not true practice."
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"The most important thing is to forget all gaining ideas, all dualistic ideas. In other words, just practice zazen in a certain posture.

TRANSIENCY We should find perfect existence through imperfect existence.

In your practice you should accept everything as it is, giving to each thing the same respect given to a Buddha.

If you think your body and mind are two, that is wrong; if you think that they are one, that is also wrong. Our body and mind are both two and one.

The beginner's mind is the mind of compassion. When our mind is compassionate, it is boundless.

We die, and we do not die.

Zen is not some kind of excitement, but concentration on our usual everyday routine.

If I tell you something, you will stick to it and limit your own capacity to find out for yourself.

There is no gap between the ignorant and the wise. A foolish person is a wise person; a wise person is a foolish person.

If you take pride in your attainment or become discouraged because of your idealistic effort, your practice will confine you by a thick wall.

The teaching which is written on paper is not the true teaching. Written teaching is a kind of food for your brain. Of course it is necessary to take some food for your brain, but it is more important to be yourself by practicing the right way of life.

Because your attainment is always ahead, you will always be sacrificing yourself now for some ideal in the future.

If you want to discover the true meaning of Zen in your everyday life, you have to understand the meaning of keeping your mind on your breathing and your body in the right posture in zazen.

If you cannot bow to Buddha, you cannot be a Buddha. It is arrogance.

You see something or hear a sound, and there you have everything just as it is.
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Whatever you do, it should be an expression of the same deep activity. We should appreciate what we are doing. There is no preparation for something else.

But as long as you have some fixed idea or are caught by some habitual way of doing things, you cannot appreciate things in their true sense.

Nothing outside yourself can cause any trouble. You yourself make the waves in your mind. If you leave your mind as it is, it will become calm. This mind is called big mind.

Our way is not to sit to acquire something; it is to express our true nature. That is our practice.

Those who sit perfectly physically usually take more time to obtain the true way of Zen.

So if you do something, you should be observant, and careful, and alert.

The Zen way of calligraphy is to write in the most straightforward, simple way as if you were a beginner, not trying to make something skillful or beautiful, but simply writing with full attention as if you were discovering what you were writing for the first time; then your full nature will be in your writing.

If you try to observe the precepts, that is not true observation of precepts. When you observe the precepts without trying to observe the precepts, that is true observation of the precepts.

If you are not concerned about what you do, you will not say so. When you sit, you will sit. When you eat, you will eat. That is all. If you say, "It doesn't matter," it means that you are making some excuse to do something in your own way with your small mind.

If you receive things just as an echo of yourself, you do not really see them, you do not fully accept them as they are.

After you have practiced for a while, you will realize that it is not possible to make rapid, extraordinary progress. Even though you try very hard, the progress you make is always little by little.

A garden is never finished.

Which is more important… to make a million dollars, or to enjoy your life in your effort, little by little, even thought it is impossible to make that million; to be successful, or to find some meaning in your effort to be successful?

Actually the best way to relieve your mental suffering is to sit in zazen, even in such a confused state of mind and bad posture.

When your mind is wandering about elsewhere you have no chance to express yourself. But if you limit your activity to what you can do just now, in this moment, then you can express fully your true nature, which is the universal Buddha nature.

Even in zazen you will lose yourself. When you become sleepy, or when your mind starts to wander about, you lose yourself. When your legs become painful - "Why are my legs so painful?" - you lose yourself. "
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"You just sit in the midst of the problem; when you are a part of the problem, or when the problem is a part of you, there is no problem, because you are the problem itself. The problem is you yourself. If this is so, there is no problem."
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"When you start to wander about in some delusion which is something apart from you yourself, then your surroundings are not real anymore, and your mind is not real anymore. If you yourself are deluded, then your surroundings are also a misty, foggy delusion. Once you are in the midst of delusion, there is no end to delusion. You will be involved in deluded ideas one after another. Most people live in delusion, involved in their problem, trying to solve their problem. But just to live is actually to live in problems. And to solve the problem is to be a part of it, to be one with it.

When he bowed to all those buddhas, the buddhas he bowed to were beyond his own understanding. Again and again he did it.

Time goes from present to past.

When we practice zazen we just practice zazen, without any gaining idea. When we talk about something we just talk about something, ... without trying to express some intellectual, one-sided idea. And we listen without trying to figure or some intellectual understanding, without trying to understand from just a one-sided view.

In your everyday life you always have opportunities for enlightenment. If you go to the rest room, there is a chance to attain enlightenment. When you cook, there is a chance to attain enlightenment. When you clean the floor, there is a chance to attain enlightenment.

When you live completely in each moment, without expecting anything, you have no idea of time.

When you are practicing zazen, do not try to stop your thinking. Let it stop by itself. If something comes into your mind, let it come in, and let it go out. It will not stay long. When you try to stop your thinking, it means you are bothered by it. Do not be bothered by anything ... if you are not bothered by the waves, gradually they will become calmer and calmer.

When we hear the sound of the pine trees on a windy day, perhaps the wind is just blowing, and the pine tree is just standing in the wind. That is all they are doing. But the people who listen to the wind in the tree will write a poem, or will feel something unusual. That is, I think, the way everything is.

There is no particular way in true practice. You should find your own way, and you should know what kind of practice you have right now.

In Hinayana Buddhism, practice is classified in four ways. The best way is just to do it without having any joy in it, not even spiritual joy. This way is just to do it, forgetting your physical and mental feeling, forgetting all about yourself in your practice.

When you do something, if you fix your mind on the activity with some confidence, the quality of your state of mind is the activity itself. When you are concentrated on the quality of your being, you are prepared for the activity.

Moment after moment, completely devote yourself to listening to your inner voice.

If you seek for freedom, you cannot find it. Absolute freedom itself is necessary before you can acquire absolute freedom. That is our practice. Our way is not always to go in one direction. Sometimes we go east; sometimes we go west. To go one mile to the west means to go back one mile to the east. Usually if you go one mile to the east it is the opposite of going one mile to the west. But if it is possible to go one mile to the east, that means it is possible to go one mile to the west. This is freedom. Without this freedom you cannot be concentrated on what you do. You may think you are concentrated on something, but before you obtain this freedom, you will have some uneasiness in what you are doing. Because you are bound by some idea of going east or west, your activity is in dichotomy or duality. As long as you are caught by duality you cannot attain absolute freedom, and you cannot concentrate.

The world is its own magic.

The seed has no idea of being some particular plant, but it has its own form and is in perfect harmony with the ground, with its surroundings ... and there is no trouble. This is what we mean by naturalness.

When you bow, you should just bow; when you sit, you should just sit; when you eat, you should just eat.

Our way to practice is one step at a time, on breath at a time.

We say, "To hear the sound of one hand clapping." Usually the sound of clapping is made with two hands, and we think that clapping with one hand makes no sound at all. But actually, one hand is sound. Even though you do not hear it, there is sound. If you clap with two hands, you can hear the sound. But if sound did not already exist before you clapped, you could not make the sound. Before you make it there is sound. Because there is sound, you can make it, and you can hear it. Sound is everywhere. If you just practice it, there is sound. Do not try to listen to it. If you do not listen to it, the sound is all over. Because you try to hear it, sometimes there is sound, and sometimes there is no sound. Do you understand? Even though you do not do anything, you have the quality of zazen always. But if you try to find it, if you try to see the quality, you have no quality.

The true practice to meditation is to sit as if you where drinking water when you are thursty.

When we see a part of the moon covered by a cloud, or a tree, or a weed, we feel how round the moon is. But when we see the clear moon without anything covering it, we do not feel that roundness the same way we do when we see it through something else.

Meditation opens the mind to the greatest mystery that takes place daily and hourly; it widens the heart so that it may feel the eternity of time and infinity of space in every throb; it gives us a life within the world as if we were moving about in paradise.

Big mind is something to express, not something to figure out. Big mind is something you have, not something to seek for.

Whereever you are, you are one with the clouds and one with the sun and the stars you see. You are one with everything. That is more true than I can say, and more true than you can hear.

Our practice should be based on the ideal of selflessness. Selflessness is very difficult to understand. If you try to be selfless, that is already a selfish idea. Selflessness will be there when you do not try anything.

All descriptions of reality are limited expressions of the world of emptiness. Yet we attach to the descriptions and think they are reality. That is a mistake.

The true purpose [of Zen] is to see things as they are, to observe things as they are, and to let everything go as it goes ... Zen practice is to open up our small mind.

In the zazen posture, your mind and body have, great power to accept things as they are, whether agreeable or disagreeable.
In our scriptures (Samyuktagama Sutra, volume 33), it is said that there are four kinds of horses: excellent ones, good ones, poor ones, and bad ones. The best horse will run slow and fast, right and left, at the driver's will, before it sees the shadow of the whip; the second best will run as well as the first one does, just before the whip reaches its skin; the third one will run when it feels pain on its body; the fourth will run after the pain penetrates to the marrow of its bones. You can imagine how difficult it is for the fourth one to learn how to run!

It is wisdom that is seeking for wisdom.

Leave your front door and your back door open.
Allow your thoughts to come and go.
Just don't serve them tea.

To have a headache will be all right, because you are healthy enough to have a headache.

To have some deep feeling about Buddhism is not the point; we just do what we should do, like eating supper and going to bed. This is Buddhism.

Only when you understand people, they may understand you. So even though you do not say anything, if you understand people there is some communication.

If it is raining out, do not walk fast, because it is raining everywhere.

Even if the sun were to rise from the west, the Bodhisattva has only one way.

Treat every moment as your last. It is not preparation for something else.

Our way is to practice one step at a time, one breath at a time, with no gaining idea.

So the secret is just to say 'Yes!' and jump off from here. Then there is no problem. It means to be yourself, always yourself, without sticking to an old self.

Sincerity itself is the railroad track.

The best way is to understand yourself, and then you will understand everything.
So when you try hard to make your own way, you will help others, and you will be helped by others.
Before you make your own way you cannot help anyone, and no one can help you.

Not to be attached to something is to be aware of its absolute value. Everything you do should be based on such an awareness, and not on material or self-centered ideas of value.

To renounce things is not to give them up. It is to acknowledge that all things go away.

When you try to understand everything, you will not understand anything. The best way is to understand yourself, and then you will understand everything.

Our tendency is to be interested in something that is growing in the garden, not in the bare soil itself. But if you want to have a good harvest, the most important thing is to make the soil rich and cultivate it well.

You want to eliminate your evil desires in order to reveal your Buddha nature, but where will you throw them away?

To live in the realm of Buddha nature means to die as a small being, moment after moment.

If you think you will get something from practicing zazen, already you are involved in impure practice.

We must exist right here, right now!

The way that helps will not be the same; it changes according to the situation.

Nothing we see or hear is perfect. But right there in the imperfection is perfect reality.

Now it is raining, but we don't know what will happen in the next moment. By the time we go out it may be a beautiful day, or a stormy day. Since we don't know, let's appreciate the sound of the rain now.

In our everyday life we are usually trying to do something, trying to change something into something else, or trying to attain something. Just this trying is already in itself an expression of our true nature. The meaning lies in the effort itself. We should find out the meaning of our effort before we attain something.

Things are always changing, so nothing can be yours.

Before we were born we had no feeling; we were one with the universe. This is called "mind-only," or "essence of mind," or "big mind," After we are separated by birth from this oneness, as the water falling from the waterfall is separated by the wind and rocks, then we have feeling. You have difficulty because you have feeling. You attach to the feeling you have without knowing just how this kind of feeling is created. When you do not realize that you are one with the river, or one with the universe, you have fear. Whether it is separated into drops or not, water is water. Our life and death are the same thing. When we realize this fact we have no fear of death anymore, and we have no actual difficulty in our life.

A student, filled with emotion and crying, implored, "Why is there so much suffering?"
Suzuki Roshi replied, "No reason.

Wabi means spare, impoverished; simple and functional. It connotes a transcendence of fad and fashion. The spirit of wabi imbues all the Zen arts, from calligraphy to karate, from the tea ceremony to Zen archery.

In zazen, leave your front door and your back door open. Let thoughts come and go. Just don't serve them tea.

There is no connection between I myself yesterday and I myself in this moment

When your life is always a part of your surroundings - in other words, when you are called back to yourself, in the present moment - then there is no problem. When you start to wander about in some delusion which is something apart from you yourself, then your surroundings are not real anymore, and your mind is not real anymore. If you yourself are deluded, then your surroundings are also a misty, foggy delusion. Once you are in the midst of delusion, there is no end to delusion. You will be involved in deluded ideas one after another. Most people live in delusion, involved in their problem, trying to solve their problem. But just to live is actually to live in problems. And to solve the problem is to be a part of it, to be one with it. So

We should not attach to some fancy ideas or to some beautiful things. We should not seek for something good. The truth is always near at hand, within your reach.

Just continue in your calm, ordinary practice and your character will be built up.

enjoy your problems

Take care of things, and they will take care of you.